Christian activists are visiting the family of Asia Bibi after her brother-in-law was murdered in a village of Pakistan’s Punjab province. The body of Younas Masih, 50, was found on May 25 morning in a furrow amid the crops of Dao Ki Mallian, a village in Sheikhupura district.

The father of two was married to Najma Bibi, the younger sister of Asia Bibi, the Catholic woman acquitted of blasphemy in 2018 after spending eight years on death row in Pakistan.

“He used to take care of the cattle at the farmhouse of a local landlord. We had been searching for him after he went missing a day earlier. His throat was slit. We handed over his body to police,” the victim’s brother George Masih stated in a first information report to police.

Masih accused Najma Bibi of conspiring to kill her husband with the help of Irfan Dogar, a local Muslim. “She had illicit relations with Dogar. My brother often used to stop them. The accused [Dogar] murdered him at the behest of Bibi,” said Masih.

Punjab police spokesman Sohail Akhtar Sukhera told Dawn newspaper that Sheikhupura police had arrested Najma Bibi and Irfan Dogar. He said they had confessed to the crime and the victim’s body had been sent to a morgue for an autopsy.